A desktop search application allows a user to search user files stored on the user computer. This search is based upon an index that is generated by the desktop search application. Commercially available desktop search applications include, for example,
“Google Desktop Search” of Google Inc., “Microsoft Windows Desktop Search” of Microsoft Inc., “Copernic Desktop Search” of Copernic Inc., “Yahoo! Desktop Search” of Yahoo! Inc., and “X1 Desktop Search” of X1 technologies Inc.
Many desktop search applications are executed by the user computer and are limited to user files that are stored on the user computer. Accordingly, desktop search applications require the user to access his computer and can not provide information about user files that are stored in a remote computer (such as a mail server, a shared network server and the like).
In addition, user desktop applications consume a relatively large amount of the memory and/or processing resources of the user computer. Accordingly, a desktop search application can be impractical if the user computer has limited resources (for example—the user computer is a Personal Digital Assistant), or if the user computer can allocate only limited resources to the desktop search application.
There is a growing need in providing efficient file indexing and file searching methods, systems, and computer program products.